Reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were denied access to the White House on Saturday after President Donald Trump announced a ban on the outlets a day earlier, citing what he described as their “constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!”
MS NOW reporter Akayla Gardner said a U.S. Secret Service agent told her the matter was “above him” when she asked why she was being turned away.
For Gardner, the confrontation is another chapter in a career that has taken her from a college newsroom to the White House press corps.
Journey to the White House
Gardner’s path to the White House began at Ohio State University, where she reported for The Lantern. As an undergraduate, she covered the 2020 Ohio Democratic primary debate, an experience she has said solidified her interest in political journalism.
Her work eventually took her to Washington, where she covered the Trump and Biden administrations as a White House correspondent for Bloomberg. There, she became the first author of Bloomberg’s weekly “Washington Edition: Inside the White House” newsletter.
During her tenure with Bloomberg, Gardner extensively covered the 2024 presidential election across battleground states. Her reporting has also taken her overseas for events including the G-20 summit in India and the United Nations climate conference in the United Arab Emirates.
Saturday’s denial of access was not Gardner’s first time making headlines for her interactions with Trump. Her reporting has drawn attention online, particularly through direct exchanges with Trump and coverage of his social media posts.
Pressing Trump on White House Cost Overruns
One of Gardner’s most widely shared exchanges with President Donald Trump drew about 1.17 million views online. Trump had criticized Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over cost overruns on renovations to the Fed’s headquarters, so Gardner asked why that was different from increases in the cost of Trump’s White House ballroom and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation.
Trump answered only the ballroom portion of her question, saying the project remained under budget despite its higher price because he had doubled its size. Gardner pushed back, saying, “The price has doubled.” Trump responded, “I doubled the size of it, you dumb person.” Gardner then tried to return to the unanswered part of her original question, asking, “What about the reflecting pool?” Trump did not answer. Instead, he told her, “You are not a smart person,” and continued talking about the ballroom.
The Reflecting Pool question was significant because Trump had initially said the project could be done for about $1.8 million, while federal contract records later showed the cost had risen to $13.1 million. Trump subsequently said the scope of the work had expanded.
The Mysterious “My Way” Post
Gardner also drew more than 1 million views after quickly sharing an unusual Trump social-media post. On April 18, 2026, Trump posted nearly four minutes of Frank Sinatra performing “My Way” on Truth Social — with no caption and no explanation. Gardner simply alerted her followers to what the president had posted.
The post attracted attention partly because no one knew what Trump meant by it. “My Way” is a reflective song about looking back on a life and approaching its end, and the unexplained posting prompted considerable online speculation about why Trump had chosen that particular performance at that particular moment. No definitive explanation of his intent emerged.
The post also angered Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra’s daughter. She responded on X, calling Trump’s use of her father’s performance “a sacrilege.” She later said she could not personally stop Trump from using the recording because the relevant rights were controlled by the song’s publishers. Gardner’s straightforward report of the strange presidential post became part of the larger online discussion surrounding it.
The White House dispute is the latest escalation in Trump’s long-running media censorship efforts has prompted the news organizations to raise concerns about press freedom and First Amendment protections.
What’s Next?
CNN, MS NOW and Politico said on Monday that they would sue the Trump administration for barring them from the White House grounds, saying it was a violation of their First Amendment rights to cover the president.
On Saturday, reporters from each outlet were denied access to the White House.
The news organizations said in a joint statement that they had informed the U.S. government they would be filing a lawsuit on Monday.
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” they said. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”